Open Access Baiju, J Mass Communicat Journalism 2015, 5:7 DOI: 10.4172/2165-7912.1000268 Open Access Volume 5 • Issue 7 • 1000268 J Mass Communicat Journalism ISSN: 2165-7912 JMCJ, an open access journal Rice Bucket Challenge: Purpose, Politics and Effects Gayathri Baiju* Department of Journalism, St. Joseph’s College, Devagiri, Calicut, India Keywords: Politics; Social media; Cyber media Introduction Today, the diference between the virtual and the real is diminishing. Te virtual is becoming real. Te best example is cyber activism, which is identifed as a newer kind of activism which conventional protests gets replaced with posting status and sharing one’s political thoughts among the cyber users. Before the popularization of new media, agitation takes place by getting down into the streets and protesting using posturing posters on walls, conducting strikes and meetings where a leader speaks to the audience and make them understand the necessity of their protest. But now such a system is completely taken over by a new kind of activism named as cyber activism. Here hour long speeches by the leader is replaced by capsuled or character limited tweets or status updates from leaders who until then, were not in mainstream. Tese leaders even though less known and identifed, take the command of power through the weapons of social media. Cyber activism” is any strategy that seeks to change the public agenda and include a new topic for social debate by spreading a certain message. Tis message is spread through a “word of mouth” process which is multiplied by electronic communication and personal publishing media [1]. Study shows that there is a steady hike in the number of internet users all over the world and in India; this is very well refected in Kerala too. Even though entertainment takes away a major portion in social media networks, Political discussions gets an ample space among the other forms of chit-chats on the net. Tis may be due to the high level of political literacy of Malayalees. Recent strikes like Nilppu Samaram of Adivasis got a very strong support from social media; this was not well treated by traditional media. Cyber media assured immense support for them with regular follow ups. In cyber media there is a kind of anonymous leadership that makes people unite for a common reason and getting them into the feld of action. Te most important thing is that this group includes both people from politically active and inactive people (Figure 1). Recently many state, national and international level issues got a huge support from Facebook. People were successful in taking the right stand in majority of the issues. ‘Save Mullaperiyar’ campaign got an encouraging space in social media. ‘Save western Ghats’ was another campaign which was well discussed by social media users in Kerala. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) similar to national level got into the Malayalees mind through social media. Many joined the party because of this campaign and later they became active workers of the party. Regional wise meeting was held based on this group and thus it supported in the growth of AAP in Kerala. ‘Clean India campaign’ which now is running got established through social media [2]. During the time of Delhi rape issue a very bold and strong protest were visible in social media among Kerala youth. Te most common demonstration were making the profle picture as ‘Dark Bindi’ implying ‘Nirbhaya’ the girl who lost her life afer the brutal rape. Recently, when the Israel-Palestine issue *Corresponding author: Gayathri Baiju, Department of Journalism, St. Joseph’s College, Devagiri, Calicut, India, Tel: 0495 235 5901; E-mail: gayathribaiju2008@gmail.com Received July 04, 2015; Accepted July 14, 2015; Published July 24, 2015 Citation: Gayathri Baiju (2015) Rice Bucket Challenge: Purpose, Politics and Effects. J Mass Communicat Journalism 5: 268. doi:10.4172/2165-7912.1000268 Copyright: © 2015 Gayathri Baiju. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Today, the difference between the virtual and the real is diminishing. The virtual is becoming real. The best example is Cyber activism, which is identifed as a newer kind of activism which conventional protests gets replaced with posting status and sharing one political thought among the cyber users. Before the popularization of new media, agitation takes place by getting down into the streets and protesting using posturing posters on walls, conducting strikes and meetings where a leader speaks to the audience and make them understand the necessity of their protest. But now such a system is completely taken over by a new kind of activism named as cyber activism. Here hour long speeches by the leader is replaced by capsule or character limited tweets or status updates from leaders who until then, were not in mainstream. These leaders even though less known and identifed, take the command of power through the weapons of social media. Cyber activism is any strategy that seeks to change the public agenda and include a new topic for social debate by spreading a certain message. This message is spread through a â word of mouth process which is multiplied by electronic communication and personal publishing media. Figure 1: Represents steady hike in the number of Internet Users. Journal of Mass Communication & Journalism J o u r n a l o f M a s s C o m m u n i c a t i o n & J o u r n a l i s m ISSN: 2165-7912 Research Article